Homebodies

AMY LEBLANC is a PhD student in English and creative writing at the University of Calgary. She is the author of the poetry collection, I know something you don't know and the novella, Unlocking. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Room, Arc, CV2, Canadian Literature, and the Literary Review of Canada among others. Homebodies is Amy's first short story collection.

"" Let me tell you a story: my mother will say she's a liar and my father will say she remembers things that never happened, but you and I know that isn't true. Before I tell you, pick up a pair of scissors, or a pen, or a branch, or a flower stem-- something to play with when you don't want to meet my eyes. Unhinge the wasps from your insides before their black venom seeps through." (" Nectar and Nickel" ) Homebodies is an uncanny and ghostly debut with stories that provoke dread, abjection, and horror. The tales are intertwined and linked like a chain of dried daisies or butterfly legs: someone you used to know is on trial for murder. You work at a funeral home. Your dead grandmother calls you on the phone. You pin and preserve butterflies on a corkboard as a strange girl knocks on your door. You put a bike lock on the fridge. You sleepwalk. You attend a party. You get sick. You get an IV infusion. You don't get better. The stories in Homebodies show that you don't need a house to be haunted -- the body can do that all on its own."--Publisher marketing.